


By the Numbers

by dragonflower1



Series: Team Sheppard [2]
Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Mathematics, Sheppard-centric, scientists - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-23
Updated: 2018-12-23
Packaged: 2019-09-25 04:42:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,354
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17114690
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dragonflower1/pseuds/dragonflower1
Summary: Left to his own devices in the downtime between missions, a restive John Sheppard turns to an old friend for help and finds salvation in a hidden talent.





	By the Numbers

**Author's Note:**

  * For [DorothyOz](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DorothyOz/gifts).



> For DorothyOz, who asked for many things in your wonderfully-detailed letter. After considering a lot of different angles, I finally settled on a Sheppard-centric gen fic that focuses on John being geeky/smart about something. There are mentions of the other members of Team Sheppard, and if you squint really hard, you might even see a brief flash of John/Jennifer in there, too. Somehow - and this is probably as big a surprise to me as it will be to you, Zelenka ended up playing a much bigger role than I'd originally planned. Although, considering the plot of this little slice-of-life, I think it makes sense. 
> 
> Thank you for the opportunity to write you a story. I really had fun with this challenge, and hope you find as much enjoyment in reading it as I did in writing it. :)
> 
> Also, thanks to my beta, PuddleJ, for her quick and efficient turnaround.

And just like that, John was bored. 

Tossing aside the Deadpool comic he’d been in the middle of reading for the sixth time, he watched with dull eyes as it landed on top of the considerable pile that had been growing beside him on the bed, wishing he had something to do. Half his team was laid up with various injuries sustained on their last mission. Rodney was still in the infirmary with a broken arm and leg, and Ronon had a mild concussion and was ‘resting’ in his room under threat of being strapped to a gurney by Dr. Keller if he didn’t, leaving John at loose ends. 

With Team Sheppard off rotation for the duration, John suddenly had a few days of R&R to burn up and he was making a bad show of it – as usual. 

The first twenty-six hours or so, he was fine, but after that he tended to get antsy if there wasn’t some impending crisis for him to avert. Since he’d woken up that morning, he’d already had a run, worked out in the gym, and made such a pest of himself in the control room that Woolsey had finally roused from his office and ordered him out. In an effort to distract himself, John had proceeded to track down both Teyla and Jennifer, but the Athosian had already made plans to meet up with Miko Kusanagi for tea, and Dr. Keller was on-duty and distracted by Rodney, who was a terrible patient. Of course, there was always that stack of mission reports and paperwork waiting for him in his office, but that was an activity of absolute last resort. 

A face-splitting yawn pulled him back from his reverie as it took him by surprise, and he arched into a full-body stretch that curled his toes and ground the back of his head into his pillow. Collapsing back into a boneless heap on top of his unmade bed, he wondered if he was sleepy and considered just giving up and taking a nap. Folding his hands across his stomach as he settled down to rest, Sheppard glanced idly around the room, taking in the hardcover edition of _War and Peace_ sitting unopened and unread in the bookcase, the electronic components of his radio-controlled car spread out on his worktable next to a soldering iron in a stand, and the Johnny Cash poster hanging above his head. 

The mid-afternoon light filtering through the open-weave drapes drawn across the large hexagonal windows next to his bed was dim and grey, casting the apartment’s Ancient architecture in deep shadow. As his gaze meandered over the sleek lines and sharp angles, geometry formulas began rising to the surface of his wandering mind in response to the shapes of the repeating motifs that climbed the walls and branched out in swirling fractals across the ceiling. 

Lost in the soothing familiarity of solving for X, his eyelids soon began to droop. As he turned his head to nuzzle his cheek into the pillow, his eyes came to rest on the sudoku book on his nightstand. It looked like it had been through a war. The cover was ripped in several places and had crinkled, brown splotches from the numerous cups of coffee that had almost been spilled on it, and the pages were curled up at the end from being repeatedly rolled and stuffed into a pants pocket. 

He sighed wistfully. If only he hadn’t finished the last puzzle in it the week before. He loved anything to do with numbers and their manipulation - had since he was a kid. So much so, that in spite of his aggressively average grades in most of his other classes, he’d always excelled in math. He had a knack for it, and could oftentimes visualize the correct answer long before he’d worked out the problem, sometimes before he even decided which concepts and formulas to apply to do so. It was similar to the gut instincts he relied upon as a military strategist and a pilot, and he firmly believed that his math acumen assisted him with both. 

A jolt of adrenaline suddenly shot through him, and eyes that had been heavy-lidded and full of sleep just a moment before were opened wide as a grin lit up his face. 

“Of course,” he murmured aloud as he sat up, sending a cascade of comics sliding onto the floor. With a sudden air of eager anticipation, John threw on a pair of rumpled, khaki chinos and pulled the ratty black cardigan he wore when he was off-duty over his black t-shirt. Slipping on a pair of checkerboard Vans by the door, he ran his fingers through his dark, unruly hair a few times in a futile attempt to bring it to order, gave his decimated quarters one last glance, and headed out. 

Choosing to walk rather than take the transporter, he reached the Science Lab about fifteen minutes later. He paused outside, hand pressed lightly to the door as he listened to the almost preternatural silence within. It was always strange to come here without McKay’s fast-paced voice leaking into the hallway, hurling insults and physics formulas at top volume. If Sheppard didn’t know better, he’d almost be willing to swear that it was empty. 

On the contrary, though, the series of interconnected rooms that made up Rodney’s lab was a veritable hive of intensely-focused activity, as John discovered the moment he thought the doors open and was greeted by the entire team. 

Well – greeted might not have been the correct word. 

Scientists of all stripes and disciplines manned the various work stations while waves of subdued conversation rose and fell around him. As if on cue, it died away for a second as all eyes turned toward John, then resumed as if it hadn’t been interrupted: a low hum of sound punctuated now and then by a muffled laugh or slightly-raised voice, quickly modulated. Working alone or in teams, astrophysicists and archeologists alike bent over their tasks or stared fixedly into the blue haze of computer screens. In the far corner, a small cluster of oceanographers were gathered around a laptop, absorbed in a heated, albeit low-pitched debate about what was on the screen, while Dr. Esposito scarcely glanced up at him from the naquada generator she was carefully hooking up to a grid-like device in the middle of the room that was of decidedly Ancient origin. All in all, an air of absorbed contentment permeated the lab, as if the team was thoroughly enjoying their all-too-brief respite from the critical eye and sharp tongue of their illustrious leader. 

As Rafaela paused to choose another tool, she acknowledged the Colonel where he hovered as uncertainly in the doorway as he had the first time he’d wandered into the lab three years earlier, number-covered paper in-hand, to ask for Dr. Zelenka’s help with the Hodge conjecture. That the military leader of Atlantis had been attempting one of the seven unsolved Millennium Prize Problems had apparently impressed the Czechoslovakian second-in-command, because he’d invited Colonel Sheppard to stop by anytime. And he had – but only when Dr. McKay wasn’t around. His visits had quickly become one of the best-kept secrets of the science department. 

Tucking a strand of dark brown hair that had come loose from her ponytail behind her ear, she tilted her head in the direction of the back lab. 

“He’s expecting you,” she murmured, not unkindly, and smiled before returning to work. 

Sheppard’s eyebrows rose in amazement. That was three more words than he’d ever gotten from any of the astrophysicists besides Rodney. And what was up with her 'you're expected' comment? He hadn't even known he was coming until twenty minutes ago.

Unaware of the approving nods and fond looks that followed him, he headed deeper into the lab. 

As he emerged from the passageway, a grinning Zelenka turned from the whiteboard he was writing on, blue dry-erase marker clutched firmly in hand.

“I knew you would come,” Radek stated decisively, as he capped the pen and laid it in the shallow trough then reached out to shake John’s hand. His smile widened at Sheppard’s astonished expression. 

“Am I that predictable?” John asked, his eyes drawn from Zelenka’s face to the complicated problem the man had been working on. Almost immediately, he picked out a couple of mistakes and his fingers itched to pick up a marker of his own to correct them. 

“Ano. Yes,” came the prompt reply, and John glanced sharply at his companion, his eyes narrowed.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Radek quickly raised both hands in a placating gesture and John noticed that the heel of one hand and several fingers were covered in blue ink.

“I mean nothing bad by it. Only that with Rodney in hospital, you are free to… indulge yourself.”

John sighed, dispelling the tension he hadn’t known he was carrying. They’d never actually talked about the gorilla in the middle of the room – or the infirmary, in this case. 

As Sheppard’s shoulders dropped, he nodded. “Yeah,” he drawled. “The few times I’ve slipped up and reminded him that I’m more than just a pretty face, he gets… testy. It tends to make missions difficult, so I try to keep it under wraps.”

Zelenka nodded sagely. “Ano. Rodney needs to be smartest person in room at all times, even when he isn’t.” He picked up a green marker from beneath the whiteboard pulled off the cap. “But you should not hide your light under bushel, Colonel, just to stroke Dr. McKay’s ego. It is not good for him. Or you.”

He grinned as he held the pen out to John. “Shall we?”

With an answering smile, Sheppard accepted the marker and stepped up to the board, happy to follow the scientist into the world of pure and applied mathematics. 

Three hours later, Radek’s hand cramped in the middle of a calculation and he was forced to call the session to a halt. As Zelenka massaged the center of his palm with his thumb, John reluctantly put down his marker and took a few steps back to get an overall view of what they’d accomplished. His jaw dropped. Tightly-spaced lines of blue and green computations covered the front and back of two whiteboards and half of the third, ranging in discipline from simple algebra and geometry to number theory and quantum physics. 

“Wow,” he breathed. “What a workout.” 

Radek came up beside him, the rim of his glasses flashing in the overhead lights as he scanned the problems scrawled on the boards. “I agree.” 

Just then, John’s stomach growled, and they both laughed.

“I think we have done enough for one day. Do you not agree?” Zelenka cocked his head at an angle so he could look up at the taller man. 

Sheppard carded his fingers through his hair and blew out a weary exhalation of breath. As much as this kind of exercise fed his soul, he had to admit that at the moment, even he was hungry and tired. 

“Yeah,” he murmured, glancing up at the clock. His eyes widened in disbelief when he saw what time it was. “I hate to calculate and run, but I should probably get going. It’s almost dinnertime and it’s my turn to sit with Rodney.”

“Of course.” Radek nodded. “Just one more thing before you go.” The wiry scientist left John by the whiteboard and headed for his desk. He spent the next couple of minutes rummaging around in the disorderly stacks of paper strewn across its surface and pulling out and slamming drawers, all the time muttering to himself in Czech. 

“Aha,” he cried a moment later, holding up a thick magazine whose glossy cover showed a nine-by-nine grid filled with numbers. 

John’s breath caught in his throat when Zelenka returned and held out the book to him.

“Here. Take this,” he offered, when Sheppard hesitated.

“Are you sure?”

“Ano,” Radek replied. 

“How… How did you know I’d finished the other one?” John asked as he accepted it.

Zelenka chuckled knowingly as he turned away and began organizing the mess on his desk. “You did not have book with you when you came in. There could be only two reasons for that, and I know you would never misplace it.” He glanced back, observing Sheppard over his glasses just as John was in the process of stuffing the rolled-up magazine in his back pocket. 

Realizing what he was doing, John froze, a rueful smile on his lips. 

“I guess I am that predictable.”

“Ano. Sometimes,” Radek agreed, amused. “Now go, I have things to do.” He made shooing motions in Sheppard’s direction, then turned back to his desk and with a dismayed lift of his hands and a Czech exclamation that sounded vaguely like a swear, he started sorting through papers.

Dismissed, John headed back the way he came, nodding at the few scientists still working in the other two labs on his way out. Halfway to the infirmary, he stopped in an empty hallway and pulled out the new sudoku book so he could thumb through it. It excited him in a formless way to see all those empty grids just begging for his attention, and in that instant, he knew that in his heart-of-hearts he was a big a math geek as any of the scientists. 

“So be it,” he quipped, a contented smile playing at the corners of his mouth as he slid the book back in his pocket and started off again. Even if he couldn’t make it to the Science Lab again anytime soon for another exhausting yet satisfying lesson, at least now he had a way to take the wait in his stride and keep the demons at bay until Team Sheppard could get back through the Stargate again. In fact, as soon as Rodney finished eating his pudding, John planned on making a beeline back to his quarters so he could knock off a few of the easier puzzles in the front of the magazine before bedtime. 

He couldn’t wait.


End file.
